Collectors Find Mexican Folk Art An Enchanting Change Of Pace

For centuries, Mexico, the country shaped like a cornucopia, has poured out a visual feast of folk art.

Pottery and papier-mache are some of the most well known, but there`s lacquerwork, leatherwork, toys, textiles, tinwork, weaving, woodcarving and a variety of other media such as painting on the bark of the amatl tree.

The colors are blatant, the materials used almost always humble, yet collectors are as passionate about these objects as if they were the work of a Faberge.

What do Mexican folk artists have that makes their work so beloved?

``I don`t know, except that they are completely uninhibited by what we call maturity. It is the childlike quality of their folk art that is most appealing,`` says Eugenia Fawcett, who with Mary Milner owns Mexican Folk Arts, 2433 N. Clark St.

``They are children,`` says Fawcett of the common denominator she finds among Mexican folk artists. ``They have a child`s imagination, and it goes wild all the time. It is the freshest, the most spontaneous folk art there is.``

Mexican folk artists do follow traditions. Patterns are followed down through the decades at the same factory in the same village. Skulls, omnipresent in candy and dough versions at Day of the Dead celebrations in November, have deep roots in a cultural fatalism. But the larger-than-life papier-mache skulls made in the Linares crafts shop in Mexico City are an exuberant departure in approach.

Lacquerware boxes and rectangular trays, incised layer after layer through pigments and chia-seed wax, have also been made for centuries in Olinala, Guerrero state.

``They`re still doing new things; it keeps changing, ever evolving,``

Fawcett says, explaining why Mexico`s popular art keeps collectors interested. ``Even if they do the same things, they always look different. Even with the things for which they use molds, the hair and the expression are painted on a little bit differently.``

Fawcett and Milner have sold Mexican folk art for 15 years. They made their first buying trip in an ancient Chrysler convertible. ``That particular trip we didn`t meet anybody and didn`t know a thing,`` Fawcett recalls.

Since then they have averaged trips twice a year for the last 12 years.

``We learned over the years to go to the real source and not to those cranking it out for the export trade. We just go searching door to door. One of the ways we`ve discovered potters is they don`t put up signs. They put up a piece of pottery,`` Fawcett says.

Out-of-the-way villages, such as Metepec in the state of Mexico and Tzintzuntzan in Michoacan, are their favorite hunting grounds--and the sites of many minor adventures.

``We slept on planks in Patzcuaro,`` Fawcett recalls of one buying trip.

``That is, we lay down on them. We didn`t sleep. The town was absolutely full, and we couldn`t find anything else at all. We had a blanket. I rolled up my coat for a pillow. We consoled ourselves by saying at least there weren`t any dirty sheets.``

``We go in our van, and sometimes we walk. Roads are so bad, one time we had to walk five miles to the village of Azumpa, in Oaxaca, to visit the famous potter Teodora Blanca,`` says Fawcett, who says her biggest thrill is finding art that`s different from anything seen before.

``One of the most fascinating things about Mexico is that two villages three miles apart have absolutely different pottery styles,`` she says.